Morocco launches “from New York to Marrakech” global road safety campaign

Morocco’s ambassador to the United Nations, Omar Hilale, launched the Global campaign for road safety, dubbed “from New York to Marrakech”, in anticipation of the 4th World Conference on Road Safety which will be held in the Moroccan city February 18 – 20, 2025. This will be the first time Africa will be hosting this signature event.

The launch of the campaign took place during a high-level event hosted by the International Peace Institute (IPI) under the theme “A safe and sustainable mobility journey in cities”. The event was attended by several personalities, senior United Nations officials, diplomats, artists, activists, and UN-accredited media.

Speaking at the event, Omar Hilale underlined that Morocco, under the leadership of King Mohammed VI, aspires to make of the 4th World Conference on Road Safety “the voice” of developing countries that bear the brunt both in terms of loss of human life and in terms of socio-economic impact due to traffic accidents.

He pointed out that together with the global safe community, Morocco as the host country is fully committed to do its best to have a “very strong and action-oriented” Marrakech Declaration to be adopted at the end of the Conference.

The ambassador indicated that a particular attention will be paid to Africa, as a region where road fatality rates continue to increase and where mobility and transport systems are evolving at a very rapid pace.

This important Global Conference will bring together leaders, experts, academia, private sector, and NGO’s in a bid to accelerate actions toward the Sustainable Development Goals’ targets of halving global road deaths by 2030, he further stated, adding that the Conference features pre-events, a ministerial round table, 5 plenary sessions, and 24 parallel sessions. In addition to this, the Conference will host an innovation competition and a film festival on road safety.

Road safety financing will be one of the key priorities of the Marrakech Conference, Omar Hilale said, noting that in collaboration with the UN Special Envoy for Road Safety, Morocco will host the High-Level Pledging Forum as a pre-event of the conference.

The diplomat further indicated that road safety is considered a national priority in Morocco since February 18, 2005 when King Mohammed VI, launched the first national road safety strategy.

This date was a historical turning point in the institutional management of road safety as improvement has been noticed since that time, he underlined, adding that the Strategy was implemented from 2004 to 2013, with the major objective to reverse the upward trend in the annual number of deaths and serious injuries and to reduce their number in a sustainable and continuous manner.

The 2nd Road Safety Strategy that covers the period 2017-2026 is focused, according to the ambassador, on reducing the number of deaths from road accidents by 50% by 2026. These efforts were strengthened by the creation in 2018 of the National Road Safety Agency, as a road safety management and governance body.

He also recalled that Morocco has just launched the “Safe Moto” Program to raise awareness about road safety, law enforcement, education, and the improvement of the quality and standards of infrastructure.

Speaking of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, Hilale said that while some progress has been made, much more needs to be done to accelerate action. In this regard, a new resolution on ‘‘Improving Global Road Safety’’, tabled by Morocco was adopted by consensus on 24 June 2024 with the support of 57 Member States, he recalled.

The resolution urged Member States and relevant actors to strengthen the collective commitment to accelerate and intensify efforts to implement the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for road safety and to scale up efforts to make road safety a political priority.

This event was marked by the participation of the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Road Safety, Jean Todt, the CEO of JCDecaux North America, Jean-Luc Decaux, the Deputy head of the delegation of the European Union to the United Nations, Hedda Samson, the Ambassador Permanent Representative of Poland to the UN, Krzysztof Szczerski and the Commissioner of the Department of Transportation of the City of New York, Ydanis Rodriguez.

Dani Simons, Vice-President at Alstom, the American actor and road safety activist, Jean Reno, the co-founders of Street Art for Mankind, Audry and Thibault Decker, the Japanese artist Dragon 76 and Esra Sergi Bertani, of the United Nations Office for Partnership also took part in this event.